(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone directory information modifying apparatus, and more particularly, to a telephone directory information modifying apparatus capable of sending a notification to users of a data center where telephone directory information of portable telephones is managed and is also capable of rewriting the telephone directory information of such users when a portable telephone number has been changed.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Portable telephones have a telephone directory function, and the telephone directory provides the function of registering personal information, such as the names and telephone numbers of parties to be called, in built-in memory of portable telephones. Telephone directory information registered in the telephone directory permits the personal information to be searched to retrieve the telephone number of a person to be called and is used when making a telephone call.
A telephone number is occasionally changed as a measure to cope with social evils, such as nuisance telephone calls arising from stalking, for example. In general, when a person has changed his/her telephone number, he/she notifies all of those who are recorded in his/her telephone directory that the telephone number has been changed, and asks them to modify the telephone directory information of their portable telephones.
However, it is necessary that the notification of the telephone number change and the request for modification of the telephone directory information of the portable telephone should be made with respect to all persons registered in the telephone directory. Accordingly, if the number of registrants is large, tremendous efforts are required to have the registrants change the telephone number.
A technique of conveying telephone directory information to a called party is known from Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 9-284379. With the technique disclosed in this publication, part or all of the telephone directory information of the calling party is transferred to the called party during a call, and the telephone directory information of the called party is automatically rewritten. Use of the technique permits the changed telephone number to be transferred to the called party, so that the telephone directory information of the called party can be directly modified. In this case, it is necessary that a telephone call be made to all parties who are registered in the telephone directory, in order to rewrite the telephone directory information of their portable telephones.
Meanwhile, there has been proposed a type of service whereby a backup of the telephone directory information of a portable telephone is held at a data center of a portable telephone service provider, so that in the event of failure or loss of the portable telephone, the backup telephone directory information can be readily registered in the repaired portable telephone or in a new one.
This service is, however, provided to individual users alone and does not permit exchange of telephone directory information between users. Thus, when notified of a change of a telephone number, the user must modify the telephone directory information for himself/herself.